This one must have been added to our watch list after taking the Marriage and the Movies course last year but I can’t recall why exactly I did that. It was mentioned but wasn’t required watching in the course. I am aware that it’s a classic of the romantic comedy genre, being perhaps the grand-daddy of all stories in which the couple meets while travelling together. That alone may be a good reason to seek out this very old film.
Claudette Colbert plays Ellen Andrews, a spoiled heiress who runs away from her father to marry a dashing pilot. Due to her closeted life however, she has no experience of surviving in the wider world and quickly has her money and belongings stolen from her. Fortunately for her, her plight is noticed by reporter Peter Warne who happens to be travelling in the same long haul bus and helps her out. He helps her out both by coaching her on how to ration her money and by fending off unwanted male attention. Naturally sparks fly but as in Roman Holiday, Warne is well aware of her true identity and says to himself that he is only after the scoop of a lifetime.
As my wife noted, this film takes an astonishingly patriarchal attitude. Warne unilaterally takes charge of Andrews’ travel arrangements and despite her protestations and demurrals, we see that she is secretly pleased. At one point Warne literally picks her up onto his shoulder to carry her across a river. Her father even remarks that this is exactly the kind of man his daughter needs. I guess he can get away with it at least partly because he’s being played by Clark Gable. At the same time, I note that the film also pokes fun at machismo. The thumb movements in the hitchhiking scene are clearly phallic references for example. Plus since Andrews is being played by Colbert, the character isn’t exactly a fragile princess. Despite her naivety, she still manages to display strength of character.
The best scene in the film is the one that the professor picked for the course. Needing to evade detectives sent by Andrews’ father, they pretend to be a lower-class couple who have been married for a while, with all of the attendant arguments and frustrations that entails. This scene effectively proves that Andrews is a pretty shrewd person when she needs to be and shows the audience how perfectly they click together as a couple. Personally I don’t find Colbert to be beautiful in the conventional sense but it’s worth noting that the scene in which they strip down to sleep in the same room with the “Walls of Jericho” in between them is surprisingly erotic despite Colbert wearing nothing more revealing than a fairly modest nightgown.
Another point in its favor is how much of it is set in the rustic side of America. They travel in a venerable Greyhouse bus while the rich, such as Andrews’ father as shown in the film, travel by plane, but director Frank Capra seems to want to show that the poor have more fun. The scene in which the passengers break out in a chorus feels so very old-fashioned but also so charming. They even have to sleep in cheap motels with outdoor toilets that you have to queue up for, a far cry from the glamorous lifestyle usually shown in early Hollywood films. I think this was only a temporary aberration due to the Great Depression as it would be very awkward to show the couple enjoying a luxurious life at that time.
The excellence of these scenes doesn’t preclude the fact that the basic plot is fairly rote or that I find the chauvinistic nature of this romance to be deeply unpleasant. It’s still an interesting film to watch in the knowledge that it is very much a product of its time.